Le forme del rituale a Pompei: gli strumenti del culto

Men communicate with gods by means of ritualized sequences of actions which we describe as sacrifices or sacrificial acts. In the Roman World, these sets of actions required for their performance an extensive apparatus of cult instruments and vessels, many of which are depicted in Roman art and coinage or described in Latin literature and, in very special cases, were found in the archaeological record. This article focuses on the the case of Pompeii, where objects that lay during the excavations have been well-preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and moisture. These instrumenta sacra provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the religious life of the city, given us many different informations of sacrificial practices in diverging cultic contexts. Images of ritual cultic and sacrificial practices may provide some much-needed clarity in this regard and it is fortunate that they survive in the archaeological record in so many different forms.